The present invention relates to a locking seal and particularly relates to a lock seal having excellent locking characteristics and which may be fabricated at low cost.
In conventional types of locking seals, a thick material is used for the fabrication of the buckling sleeve ring as a means to achieve a better sealing effect. Thus, a larger force has to be applied and, furthermore, a more complicated fabrication process is also involved. This increases the cost of fabrication and is very unfavorable to those end users whose volume of consumption is extremely large. The invention therefore improves the structure of such conventional lock seal and provides a lock seal having an excellent sealing or locking effect, and low fabrication cost.
The lock seal hereof affords an improvement in the structure of a conventional type of lock seal. It not only has an excellent locking feature, but may be fabricated at low cost, thereby providing end users with an excellent product to take the place of a conventional lock seal.
As is commonly acknowledged, a lock seal is a locking device which is employed to pass through and lock up a casing body or a box body. By using the lock seal, articles contained in the box or case will not be lost. Moreover, if the lock seal is disassembled or damaged by a burglar, it will be readily discovered by the owner of the box or case by examining the outer appearance of the lock seal, thereby achieving the object of preventing thievery of the contents of the case or box.
There are many different purposes for which a lock seal may be utilized and these can be roughly categorized into two types. The first one is of a light load type. Because it is utilized for a temporary locking purpose, no heavy locking effect will be required. The second one is related to the invention and is of a heavy load type. It is used to lock a case or box, for example, the van of a truck, to prevent the contents thereof from being stolen.
According to the design of the present invention, the locking effect can be brought to its full play by having a lock retention sleeve formed out of a metallic sheet to match with another metallic sheet having a circular hole and a spring toggle with a gap, i.e., a split ring, to facilitate the insertion and buckling of a circular rod having a ring groove. However, some changes may be made to its outer shell to cope with the various requirements of utilization, for which a basic demonstrative example is shown in FIGS. 1 and 5.
In a preferred embodiment according to the present invention, there is provided a lock seal comprising a housing, with at least two lock retention sleeves disposed in the housing, each of the sleeves having a frustoconical portion defining large and small diameter opposite ends and a radially outwardly directed flange adjacent the larger diameter end thereof extending in a plane generally normal to the axes of the frustoconical sleeve portion, the sleeve being axially aligned within said housing. A split ring is disposed within each of the frustoconical portions of the sleeves and means are provided for retaining the split ring within the sleeve and enabling axial movement thereof. Also provided is a flexible element having opposite ends, with means cooperable between one end of the element and the housing for retaining the one end of the element in the housing. A pin is carried by the opposite end of the flexible element, receivable axially within the sleeves, the pin having a plurality of circumferentially extending, axially spaced grooves, the split ring having an internal diameter smaller than the diameter of the pin such that each ring will at first expand upon insertion of the pin and then contract in a pin groove to retain the pin within the body upon attempted retracting movement of the pin from the body.
These and further objects and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent upon reference to the following specification, appended claims and drawings.